An officiating error by IMSA led to the chequered flag being shown one lap early, but the mistake almost certainly had no bearing on the result as Felipe Nasr, Matt Campbell, Dane Cameron and Josef Newgarden took victory for Porsche Penske Motorsport even though the car was short-fuelled at its final pitstop.
Raul Prados, lead engineer on the winning #7 Porsche 963 LMDh prototype, explained that the car was fuelled in the expectation that the race could run to as many as 793 laps, two more than the 791 after which the flag was waved.
“We were planning for the race to go to lap 793, that was the number we were trying to hit on the strategy,” said Prados.
“Daytona is a timed race, so the pace changes the lap count, and it was flickering between the two [792 and 793].
“We were safe on fuel; we [only] needed to save a little bit.”
Prados said Penske believed that the second-placed Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R LMDh with Pipo Derani at the wheel had a similar amount of fuel to the Porsche for the run to the flag.
But official ‘energy replenishment’ data from IMSA suggested that the Porsche left the pits after the final stops with a 75% fuel load compared with 80% for the Cadillac.
Short-fuelling the #7 963 at the final round of pitstops was key to Porsche’s first overall victory at Daytona since 2003 and its first with a prototype since 1995.
Source: Autosport